User blog:Deshiba/No counterplay
Greetings fellow Summoners, Today I'd like to talk a bit about Riots decision making process and how no (or "Lack off") counter play influences this in a positive way but sometimes has negative results. This will cover various topics, but I'll try to steer clear of a but it has to be mentioned so bare with me. Too long; Could not be arsed to read it all I feel that the "Unstoppable" mechanic is broken and should not exist, as skilled play has no way of preventing it. The only counter to it, is to buy items, or pick champions specifically to deal with the mechanic in itself. Your thoughts to this statement will be appreciated ;) Definition So what exactly counts as "counterplay"? Well according to the dictionaries, it is "a positive or aggressive action by the defending side", so that would be something that people like to call "Xpeke". But that's not how Riot actually uses the term, they take some parts of it literally chopping it up into 2 words, counter and play. So it would seem to be placed in their dictionary as "A way of playing that counters the tactics or mechanics utilized by a champion or team." <- Feel free to dispute or add things to that definition in the comments. Counterplay With that being said, there have been champions who have been reworked with the motivation of "There is no counterplay". The most recent champions I can remember are , and (if I left your favorite champion out, I'm sorry they are not in my mind-space). Xerath Xerath was deemed to be broken because it was easy for him to snipe you from a good range, and if you got close he could reposition himself without much effort. Now personally I had no issues with this, but I can see how this would be considered broken. Playing as Xerath when he was free I can say I found it to be boring too, and people on this wiki space seem generally happy with his reworked kit. Skarner Broken because of permanent slow? , , , , , , , , ? ?, and ofcourse Red buff. All they need to fix on him was his ultimate, but you already got my opinion on it and they won't reverse it so no use talking about it even more. Kassadin Broken because of his ability to dash away with his ult, never actually needing to take risks and thus not using half of his kit's damage for combat. Which was true, you didn't need to use your ult to deal damage, nor your vorpal blade thingy. You could burst with just the silence and the slow. Just sad they didn't really handle for exactly those same reasons, only really need the spears to kill something and only need the cougar pounce to get away (at no cost I might add)... But really All of these are fine examples of what Riot deemed broken and without counter play. I have to say I even agree with most of their decisions, although you'll generally only hear about it when I don't... So in that spirit, there's some broken champions out there that I don't think deserve it, and here is the 1 mechanic that I think is absolutely without counter play. Unstoppable Now some of you might not know what this is and why I think that it's the worst thing EVER, so I'll explain... For those of you that do know, Skippit! Unstoppable is a low duration self buff that makes you completely impervious to any form of crowd control or disables out there. Basically there is no way to stop it from happening regardless of how well you respond or predict the enemy's behavior. It is so strong that exactly like resurrects their implementation are exclusive to Ultimate abilities. Who has this? The champions I am talking about are , , , and , their ultimate abilities can not be countered with skilful play. I'm talking about non external aid, just the champion and the abilities you are given. The only way to counter these abilities are to either "Counter pick" them with or , or to "Counter Build" them with . Now I'm going to go trough them in categories a bit: Olaf and Poppy have a self buff without any CC attached to it, they could be "Counter Played" by just not engaging them for the duration, which in most teamfights, is not an option. So killing them would be the most preferable option, which is an O K strategy against the barbarian. But for the smurf? She becomes invulnerable to any damage as well, there's only 1 person in the world that can hurt her during ult, and if that person happens to be something like well, good luck on your way to the rez shrine. Hecarim and Malphite, both have a ground targeted dash that ends in AoE crowd control. Hecarim's ends in a fear where everyone runs away from him, which is not that bad... Fear can be cleansed, not balling up helps and well, spell shields. But Malphite, since his crowd control is a knock-up, there's not a lot you can do about it. Unlike hecarim his speed during the ult is insane, and even if you can stun Malphite during his ult so he gets stunned on arrival, the target he hits is still disabled for the entire knockup. Vi, maybe the most broken out of all of these, her ult is unstoppable, and it can't miss. It has no counter play in the hands of a good player, the common "Advise" is to buy or counter her with spell shield champions. Then tactically, it's usually to bait her in the middle of your team by using and kill her when she does. But any decent player will not be baited into attacking a target with spell shield or flash available. Broken This makes currently the most broken champion in the game, in my opinion at least. So what do you think? Is it okey for there to be a mechanic in the game that has no way to be countered with abilities? No way for it to be stopped without summoner spells or items? Or am I grinding my gears over something that is silly and untrue? EDIT Oh dear, this seems to have people focus on my examples of counter play more then the actual question I would like to discuss. So to reiterate, I'd like to discuss weather or not you think it's okey for champions to have the "Unstoppable" mechanic tied into their main form of Crowd Control. That was the focus of this blog... Though I'm quite happy to discuss Permanent Slow, Champion Specific Counter Play or even why I feel and are broken... Please at least give some comment on the Unstoppable thing ;) Deshiba, the Nitpicker 16:26, May 16, 2014 (UTC) Category:Blog posts